Hyomin's POV.

"Hyomin?"

Something was shaking me.

"Hyomin. Wake up!"

I jerked awake. Opening my eyes, I saw a short black hair and gingham pyjamas.

"Hwayoung," I said grumpily, "what day is it?"

My eleven-year-old sister tilted her head, her large, brown eyes regarding me seriously. She wrinkled her nose.

"Saturday, stupid. Your birthday!" She put both hands on my bed and levered herself up to perch next to me. "They're talking about you downstairs."

"Already?" I said, still sleepy. "What are they saying today?"

Hwayoung sighed a little melodramatically. "Eomma is worried about you getting up in the night, opening windows and doors." She nestled in close to me. "Last night you left footprints on the carpet in the hall."

"Oh." I rested my head back. "I sleepwalked."

Hwayoung nodded happily. "I think it's cool." She fiddled with the silver chain on my wrist. "Where did you go, unnie? Aren't you scared?"

"I don't know and I don't know," I said, pressing me cheek against her black head. "I'm kind of asleep ... you know?"

Hwayoung giggled. "Well, i think you're brave," she said. "Don't listen to them."

"What else did eomma say?" I asked casually.

"That maybe you should go to boarding school," Hwayoung replied sadly. "Because you're too insolar."

"What?" I prodded Hwayoung's arm. "Insolar?"

"You don't have enough friends," Hwayoung turned to face me. She slid her arms around my waist and kissed my cheek. "But i told her you've got me."

"Right." I smiled. "I think the word is insular."

"Like i said," Hwayoung buried her face in my chest. "Insolar."

"I'm sixteen. I don't have to go to school any more. Not if I don't want to."

"You're lucky." Hwayoung scrambled to sit up. She examined my face. "What's that?" She pointed at my cheek, pushing my hair to the side. "You've got a scratch. It wasn't there yesterday."

I stared at her and put my hand up to my face, feeling the rough puckered skin.

"I must have done it in my sleep," I said cautiously, remembering the trees and intense cold and then ... warmth like I'd never felt before. And someone--

"You'd better cover it up," Hwayoung broke my thoughts, pulling my brown, curly hair over my face, covering the wound. "Or eomma will start locking your bedroom door at night."

"She fusses too much." I said, half wishing that i could be locked away. For the few weeks leading up to my birthday I'd been having these dreams. At first I'd had no real memory of what happened in them, but lately ... lately i had been remembering more, waking exhausted and sometimes finding inexplicable burises and scratches.

"I'm hungry." Hwayoung slithered off the bed. "Breakfast time!"

Downstairs it was a typically unceremonious Park birthday breakfast. My mother doesn't believe in spoiling. She and Appa were buying me a car for my seventeenth, so this year was some money in a bank account. Hwayoung, bless her, had bought me a book token and Appa had kissed me on the cheek and got back to tapping out numbers on his calculator. Hot topic of the day i was not. The mood this morning was sober.

"Happy birthday to me," I muttered, pushing rabbit food around in a bowl.

"Old Murray's cancelled his commission," said my father, to no one in particular.

"Oh God." My mother sighed, pushing away her unfinished yoghurt and banana. "Not another one."

Dad nodded, brushing his beard with a napkin. "But we'll be fine, Minyoung. I have Mrs Shinhye's kitchen table and Dongwook's staircase. We won't starve."

Mum picked up her bowl and pushed her chair back, shooing our Irish wolfhound, Bobby, out of the way. She walked into the kitchen. "But it's drying up, Jisu," she called back. "No one's got any money, and they're not coming up this far." She started putting on rubber gloves. Mrs Ahjung in the post office says everyone thinks this little mountain is cursed."

My dad winked at my sister and me. "I'm a carpenter," he said. "I'll always get work."

My mother, who never fails to look on the dark side of life, grunted and began wrestling with the bin liner. "We need to prepare ourselves for the worst, is all i'm saying."

"What's a curse?" asked Hwayoung, plunging a soldier into her boiled egg. I watched queasily as the yolk trickled on to the shell.

"It's made up, is what it is," i told her. "There are no such things as curses."

"Like what they say about magic?" Hwayoung stared, interested.

"That doesn't exist either," I said, rolling my eyes. "It's what Grandma used to call claptrap." I looked up and met my mother's eyes as she stood, one hand clutching a bag full of rubbish, in the doorway.

"We need to talk about your education for the next few years, Hyomin." she said abruptly. "I can't go on teaching you at home. I need to get a job."

"Fine. I'll go to college." I drank the rest of my tea. "There's one in Bogwangdong-gil. And it's only five miles away." I smiled at Hwayoung. "I can go by bike."

"No," said Mum quickly. "Not here."

"Boarding school," Hwayoung poked my arm. "I told you, unnie."

"I'm too old," I said. "It's ridiculous."

Mum put down the rubbish. "Not boarding school. God knows we can't afford that. But somewhere you can mix with girls your own age. It's not healthy for you to be stuck up here all day," She sighed. "A fresh start. Right, Jisu?"

My dad rubbed his forehead awkwardly. "I don't know, Minyoung ... is it really necessary?" He looked over at me. "Your mother just wants you to be happy -- after what those girls ... I mean, a new school might help you forget."

Mum tried smiling at me. "It'll be good for you, Hyomin. You'll make proper friends."

I winced. "I don't need to make friends. It's my birthday and you're spoiling it. I'm fine as I am."

My parents exchanged a look that said We'll see.

You won't, I thought defiantly.

"I'm going out for a bike ride," I said, scraping back my chair and walking to the back door. As I pulled my hair into an untidy ponytail my hand knocked against the scratch on my face.

"Ow." I grabbed at the door handle, flustered.

"Hyomin?" called my mother.

"I'm fine," I snapped. "Stop fussing"

"Wrap up warm, sweetheart," she said limply.

I ignored her and pulled my hood up.

"Be back by twelve," she said. "We need to do Maths today."

I stepped outside without answering, immediately regretting not taking a coat.

I don't need change, I thought angrily as i wheeled my bike out of the shed. I don't need friends. I closed my eyes, thinking of a year ago, when i had walked out of school for the last time. I'd had no friends, Hyuna had seen to that. Queen Bee, Kim Hyuna, she who ruled the school and cast a poisonous spell over everyone in it.

"You're a freak, Hyomin," she told me, over and over again. "You look like a boy. You dress like a tramp."

For Hyuna, who never wore the same thing twice, who learned the word 'materialistic' before 'mama', I was incomprehensible.

I took the rugged hill path down towards the town. It seemed right that my journey was uncomfortable, jolting over the stones as I curved down our piece of the mountain. After days of grey sky that had sealed us in, this morning it was a beautiful bright day. A day of escape. The crispness of the air pecked satisfyingly at my cheeks as i rode and I began to warm up as I pushed hard on the pedals. To my left was the wood, pines with a frosting of snow. It was dense and eerie, not somewhere you'd want to be at night.

I was there last night.

I shook my head, suddenly anxious, and found myself braking. I put one foot down on the ground and thought I heard someone call my name. Something in the trees. I swallowed and dropped my bike where it was. As the wheel spun behind me I trod through the gorse to take a closer look.

I reached the outskirts of the wood and saw nothing. No one.

I had turned away when i heard it again, a soft sound that could almost have been the wind. "Hyomin."

"Hyomin!"

I dropped my hand and jerked around. My sister was crouched down by my bike, spinning the wheel with one hand as she looked over at me.

"You ran all this way?" I asked her.

"I want to come too," she said in a wheedling voice. "Eomma and appa are arguing again."

"Fine. But I'm taking the painful route," I told her.

Hwayoung nodded furiously. "I don't mind the stones," she said brightly. "It's fun."

"Strange child." But i smiled at her all the same. As she struggled with getting the bike upright again I turned back to take one more look at the dense trees, listening.

Nothing.

"What are you doing?" Hwayoung called, jigging from foot to foot. "Let's go."

I did a final examination of the trees before walking back to the path. Disappointed.

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So how was it? :B

By the way, those who still can't figure out, Hyomin's home-schooled :B